Changes and the struggles that can come with those

Change is always a process. It can be pretty tough depending on how drastic you are going and the more frustrated you get the harder and longer the change will be. So, it’s important to stay optimistic and know what you are in store for.

To be honest, I’m not always the best when it comes to this. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that it’s tough to not be able to do things that you very recently took for granted. The hardest aspect of learning is the ability to let go of what you thought you knew in lieu of the next big step. This is where a lot of golfers (or anyone working on anything) trip up. They are not willing to let go.

I recently completely altered a lot of what I thought I knew in my swing. In fact, I feel like I have completely changed my entire concept of what the golf swing is and have enlightened my mind to a complete mechanic makeover. And it hasn’t been the easiest change in many ways, but I can see already how it is going to pay off gangbusters shortly down the road and that’s what keeps me going through the change.

I’ve touched on this once before, but today I would like to talk about what it takes to make a big change and how I see that process unfolding.

When I first met with Bruce Furman down at Langdon he had me work on a different setup, grip, shoulder turn, take-away and delivery of the club. Basically, he is transforming my swing in almost every way conceivable.

The process to completely revamp one’s swing starts with instruction. You have to have the right knowledge to move in the direction you want to go and that knowledge is best provided by an instructor you trust. I met with Bruce for the first time a couple of weeks ago and he gave me a laundry list of drills and changes to make. Here is a short selection of some of the changes and drills he had me doing in the first week to start the process:

That’s a short snippet. Since those first videos, Bruce has suggested a few other changes each time we have met and I have been working on them diligently. The first step was Bruce’s job: Figure out which changes to make.

The next step is to implement the changes in half and 3/4 swings on the range. I try and make 20-30 of these mini swings doing the “right” movement before taking a full swing on the first day of learning. This step takes repetition as you have ingrained a previous movement countless times so it takes patience and repetition to move away from something you know in an automatic fashion. This step can be a little confusing because it is the first day of trying to learn something new and often the coach who offered the change is not around when you are practicing so you have to rely on your memory of the movement. Having a video of yourself doing the correct new swing move can be a huge benefit. Don’t be afraid to watch the clip your coach made of you after every 10-15 minutes of practicing. You want to make sure you are on the right page and moving in the correct direction and a visual of yourself doing what you want to do is an optimal training aid. What’s better than seeing yourself doing what you want to do? I haven’t found any substitute for it.

The entire first day of practicing the new move/moves can potentially go smoothly, but odds are it will be a bit confusing and you might question whether you are doing it correctly. Don’t fret, though, as what is happening is you haven’t built a “feel” for the move yet. Stick with the process and don’t be surprised if you walk away at the end of your practice more confused than you started.

Repeat this practice process for a day or two more and inevitably around the third or fourth practice session you will start to “get it” and the new move will begin to make sense. What I have noticed is that it takes a few separate practice sessions for a change to begin to settle into the brain. It also takes time both on and off the course. For me, a huge part of the learning process is sleep. It may sound funny, but when I am trying to learn something new I need more sleep. It’s in my dreams where I process most aspects of my life, including my training sessions and when I am making a big change I always wake up each morning with a better understanding of what I was working on the previous day than when I went to bed. It’s just a matter of allowing yourself time for things to seep in. It was the same when I was in high school and college. If there was a physics or calculus problem that was causing me issues I’d often stop focussing on it after a while and go to sleep. Nine times out of ten the answer would be there in the morning.

A few days/practice sessions in, the conceptual aspects of your change start to make sense. Now comes the hard part. You understand the new move and can do it on the range, but now you have to build it into your game during a round. This is where frustration can be at it’s highest levels. The new move makes sense so you want to start using it in practice rounds. When you start doing this you can pull it off very well about half the time and the other half some aspect of your old swing creeps in and you hit it fat, thin, hook, slice, etc. It’s pertinent to not revert when this happens. You need to allow yourself missed shots and to forget about scoring for a while or you will never fully make a change. If you do completely submit to the new swing then after a few practice rounds it will start to become an ingrained aspect of your swing and you can then take it to friendly matches where score matters but there isn’t anything on the line. After a few of those, if you are comfortable with the changes and confident you won’t revert to the old move then it’s time to bring the swing to a money game. Play in a few of those and if all is well you are officially tournament ready.

This entire journey can take anywhere from ten days to a few months. It all depends on the size of the change and your willingness to stick to it despite any askew outcomes. It’s a process. There are no shortcuts that I have found except to stick to the plan. The more your veer away from the path the longer the entire journey will take.

If you find yourself getting overly frustrated you should walk away. Give your brain some time to process what you are trying to change and then approach it fresh later on.

One final note is that it is very easy to overdo something. Just today I went and saw Bruce again and I had gone too extreme with my arm position in the backswing. This is an easy fix, but it’s only an easy fix because it was caught early on. This is another great reason to have a coach to check in with when changes are being made.

This is a couple clips from today’s lesson. I’m working on the next step of the total swing change. This time it’s to keep my spine angle and stay behind the ball. As Bruce mentions I have gotten a bit overstretched in my backswing. Reaching farther was something I was working on last week and now I have to keep it in check as I have gotten too far away from the body. regardless, this is my homework for the next three days:

This blog brought to you by Clicgear USA. Without a solid pushcart my back would not be as strong as it needs to be on a daily basis. Thanks Clicgear for keeping me rolling along.

10 Responses to "Changes and the struggles that can come with those"

Robert Johansson says:

May 28, 2013 at 10:13 am

Personally I would do one new move and one old move both in slow motion awareness, you need to know the difference of feel to make the transition anyhow, practicing only the right move slows this down.
Richard Chen says:

May 28, 2013 at 11:31 am

Hard to see from the videos during setup without being right there concerning whether the tops of the leading and trailing wrists are “arched up” or bowed up too much.

Hogan’s 5-fundamentals book, as I recall, shows a good test for the leading wrist setting during setup. His book has a picture of holding the driver a little off of the ground with just the leading hand, and with only using the index finger by moving the leading hand thumb, middle, ring, and pinky fingers away off of the club handle. The top of the driver handle is balanced under the leading hand heel pad, and the leading hand index finger holding up the club a little off of the ground. In this fingers off configuration, it is more natural and comfortable to not arched up the top of the leading hand wrist.

There was a write up, which I forgot where, that supposed that Hagen used a driver with a slight kink below the driver club handle to bend the shaft at a point a little below the club handle to point the shaft down a little lower, so that the club handle points toward the middle line of the driver clubhead, rather than the club handle pointing down toward the heel of the driver clubhead, where the bottom of the club shaft is attached to the clubhead. The rules of golf now outlaw such bends in the club shaft, but some putters still has some similar bends low down the shaft. The writers said that they found it easier to hit with such a driver after they put such a kink in the shaft, as an experiment. It may be possible to grip the club handle with the leading hand in such a way so that the leading hand points more up toward the center line of the clubhead (in a virtual visualization manner so to speak) than to have the hand pointing straight down along the club shaft toward the heel of the driver clubhead where the bottom of the shaft is actually attached to the clubhead.

Both of these possible techniques tend to prevent arching up the top of the leading hand wrist too much. Hogan’s balancing the driver with all fingers excepting the index fingers off the club handle offers in addition a naturally “neutral” balancing point, so that waggling can be more freely made. Having the leading hand grip pointing virtually higher up toward the center line of the clubhead tends to provide increased feeling of the clubhead position during the back and down swings to give feelings more control of the position of the clubhead throughout the swing.
Richard Chen says:

May 28, 2013 at 1:30 pm

By “tops of the leading and trailing wrists,” it is meant the sides of the wrists where the thumbs are, which during setup, these thumb-sides of the wrists are on “top” of the gripping hands.
Patrick says:

May 28, 2013 at 10:37 pm

Good work Dan, keep going!
Schuler Shu says:

May 29, 2013 at 3:11 am

I’m from china.　GOD　Bless you! support！！！！
DaveC says:

May 29, 2013 at 7:11 am

Dan, it’s great to see you finally losing that awkward early wrist break. The second video is showing a much more “conventional” swing that I’m guessing, requires a lot less timing and luck to get the head back to the ball properly. Better clubhead speed too, I bet.
Richard Chen says:

May 29, 2013 at 7:47 am

One possible visualization technique during the backswing is to imaging setting up as to deliver a karate chop towards the ball by setting up the leading hand and arm to an angle during the later part of the backswing, at the top of the backswing, and during the initial part of the downswing so as to deliver a karate chop in the direction of the ball. A karate chop is delivered with the heel of the leading hand toward where the ball is. Most in the US are no longer that interested in karate so that a karate chop is seldom seen, but the karate chop action can be seen in old action movies, and in old television action series still.

If the backswing is overly flat, at the top of the backswing, the karate chop aiming direction will be above the ball toward the tree line. If the backswing is very upright, at the top of the backswing, the karate chop aiming direction will be at the grass between the ball and the feet. For the average backswing, the karate chop aiming direction will be approximately towards the ball, but not necessarily exactly at the ball.

During the initial part of the downswing, the heel of the leading hand maintains its leading position, as if to actually making a karate chop to strike the ball with the heel of the leading hand. This karate orientation of the leading hand during the first part of the downswing will have the top (back) of the leading hand facing about half ways up, and facing to the front of the player, so as to keep the clubhead inside to prevent both slicing and straight pulls.

It is during the later release phase of the downswing, when the karate orientation of the leading hand and arm is switched to the “punching” orientation with the knuckles of the leading hand, and the back of the leading hand facing in the direction of the target.
Richard Chen says:

May 29, 2013 at 9:14 am

By the way, I am NOT in favor of using any “punching” or swing hitting bags, as it may be risky. With better techniques both physical and via visualization, which can offer gaining automatically great amounts of efficiency to surprisingly produce great increases in clubhead speeds, that are beyond conscious control, having any obstructions in the path of the clubhead other than the ball may be risky.
Chris Villasenor says:

May 29, 2013 at 1:27 pm

If you’re looking for perfect lines, angles, and sequence, compare yourself to this video. Sure, the girl is 10 but she’s the perfect map of the “modern” swing. If you have the flexibility to pull this off, great. My restrictions put me more into the Rocco Mediate swing model… http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golftalkcentral/lucy-li-10-qualifies-for-us-womens-publinx/
Patrick Brooks says:

May 29, 2013 at 4:21 pm

I love the message “if you want to be something, do it”… I have come to realize that in my own life, and I commend you for making such a strong case for it! Good luck Dan!

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